It's beer, and I know it's craft, but is beer really that expensive over there? So 330ML is a bit over 11oz and at £1.80/each, that works out for us Yankees to be about $2.71/beer. Drinking at a bar, I'd understand that price, but buying online and adding shipping that seems a bit much even if I lived in the UK.

It's beer, and I know it's craft, but is beer really that expensive over there? So 330ML is a bit over 11oz and at £1.80/each, that works out for us Yankees to be about $2.71/beer. Drinking at a bar, I'd understand that price, but buying online and adding shipping that seems a bit much even if I lived in the UK.

$2.71 a beer, in a bar sounds like a bargain... you gotta take into account that everything in the UK is more expensive than the US... often because the price includes 20% VAT, and on alcohol, there's further duty.

Pubs around the London office charge £5.50 for a pint (20oz) of Heineken/Stella/Becks.

It's beer, and I know it's craft, but is beer really that expensive over there? So 330ML is a bit over 11oz and at £1.80/each, that works out for us Yankees to be about $2.71/beer. Drinking at a bar, I'd understand that price, but buying online and adding shipping that seems a bit much even if I lived in the UK.

As Chris M said, beer (and wine and spirits) can be a lot more expensive when served in a pub, bar, hotel or restaurant. Even more so in a bigger city; especially so in London. Go to a night club and you need to take out a second mortgage.

We also buy beer by the Imperial Pint; 20 fl oz as opposed to the US pint of 16 fl oz. (So 25% bigger). However, cans are in millitres, including the half-litre size (500 ml), bottles are usually in ml, but sometimes pints. (Just to confuse you).

This is why there are so many special day offers for people to travel to France on the ferries or through the Chunnel. Lots of people take a car, head for the Hypermarket of one of the back street wholesalers in Calais, fill the car with booze before heading back to the UK; it's possible to save a fortune. I was saving about 5 pound per 24 pack of the 25 cl stubby bottles some 10 years ago.

A couple I met on one trip were going over to buy the wine and champagne for their daughter's wedding. Just on what they could get in the back of their car, and allowing for the cost of the fuel and ferry charge, they still saved close to a grand.

Customs & Excise used to impound booze from people caught smuggling and then give it away to the local retirement homes until about 20 years ago. But the amount that they seized started to reach such large quantities 2 decades ago, that they have to destroy it as unloading that volume of goods would cause a major disruption to local shops.

In fact, it is now such an issue that they cannot just pour it into the drain system as it would constitute an environmental hazard; and the government spends enormous amounts on getting in contractors to destroy the containers and dispose of the contents in a more environmentally responsible manner. Even so, they still have a backlog; the last I heard, they were taking up to a month to complete the process.